166 roads have, I allow, a good deal to do with this, but this has nothing to say in extenuation of our former folly; indeed only proves, when by a very simple process good roads have been made, what a set of apes men must be who for centuries have been contented with bad ones! Sir J. M'Adam stands just in the position of Columbus with the egg: the making good roads was only a happy hit, but a hit that has rendered the public his everlasting debtor.

WHAT IS JUDICIOUS DEPENDS ON CIRCUMSTANCES.

It is now a universal cry, "it's of no use to load a horse with harness." In this I fully agree. Then comes the addenda, "the less he has the better." This as a general maxim I must pertinaciously deny. They will say "harness heats horses;" no doubt it does; so can a man walk more pleasantly without an umbrella over his head than with one, but a good soaking rain makes him congratulate himself he has one with him. So we need not encumber a pair of horses with breeching to take a drive round the Regent's Park; but I should not think I consulted their comfort during a tour in Wales, if, to avoid their carrying a pound of leather each, I obliged them to hold a carriage by their necks down Welsh hills. The same thing would hold good in single harness, nay more so, for going down hills in two-wheeled carriages is the only place where they are disadvantageous to the horse.

Driving a journey without bearing-reins is decidedly a great relief to most horses; so, because men who are coachmen are seen doing this on the road, every yahoo who takes a pair in hand does the same thing through the streets of London with two horses with mouths like bulls. Even 1845 Commercial Gentlemen, who now daily drive wholesale warehouses on wheels

about the street, eschew a bearing-rein: they would probably say it is "dem'd slow" to use one; so on they go with a boring brute that they can only pull up on his nearly taking an inside place in the omnibus before him. I must be dem'd slow, for I maintain there is not one horse in twenty that can be got through a crowded street (properly) without one. To thread a throng of carriages smoothly, and without any pully-hauly work, will keep a good coachman on the qui vive, and to do this the horses must be on the qui vive also: when they are (to use a Snip's phrase), we can shove them through an eyelet hole -when I say we, I should rather say a coachman

can.

Reverting to the article of the collar, on which so much of the comfort of a horse depends in drawing, I beg to make a remark or two on breast-collars. They are great favourites of mine under certain circumstances; but I should be very sorry to condemn the wheeler of a coach to work in one, though over a light stage I think them good things for a pair of leaders they are light and cool: I like them for a very light buggy for the same reasons: but if they were used where a fixed splinter-bar is necessary, they must cut horses' shoulders to pieces. This requires but little explanation. Leaders draw from a loose bar, consequently, on the advance of each shoulder in stepping, the end of the bar on the same side can advance also, leaving the breast collar stationary on the breast; but where each trace goes to a fixed splinter-bar, the trace on that side being also immovable, the shoulder advancing must be galled by the collar passing from side to side over it, and thus, if the weight to be drawn was heavy, the

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friction would be greater than any skin could bear, It may be said our forefathers used them to their carriages: they did; but those venerated gentlemen never heard of ten miles an hour. The friction on a locomotive destined to move a plough three miles an hour would not cause much wear and tear: it becomes somewhat different with one going fifty.

If used for gigs (where these collars answer very well for fast going and light vehicles) care must be taken the bar is left full motion, so that the ends to which the traces go may advance and recede several inches. Now here is an error daily made by the best coachmakers, and which not one owner of a gig in a hundred ever thinks of rectifying. Why was a movable bar first used to a gig in lieu of the old small trace-hook fixed inside the shaft? It adds nothing to the neat appearance of the carriage, adds a trifle of weight, and moreover generally becomes soiled by the horse, and then has a dirty look. Its introduction arose from a wish to avoid any unpleasant motion being given to the carriage by the alternate advance of the horse's shoulders, to give those shoulders more freedom of action, and consequently to lessen the probability of galling them; and so it would if it were permitted to act like the swingbar of a leader: but coachmakers in their wisdom first fix it to the cross-bar by a strong leather, six inches wide, so as to render it a fixture; and then, from fear there should be any chance of its only utility taking place, they add two more straps near each end, so that it is just as immovable as the splinter-bar of a four-wheeled carriage, consequently would be far better removed altogether out of the way; for, as it is, it is merely an inconvenience: but many such

inconveniences are in daily use, from many of which horses suffer.

In assisting horses in drawing heavy weights up hill, a very great deal may be done in a way that is very little attended to; namely, by a proper hind shoe. I have pointed this out to many coachmen when sitting beside them, and I only recollect one who had ever given the thing a thought; though, on my pointing out the disadvantage the horses worked under from its neglect, they always promised they would take the hint.

I make no doubt many of my readers, when riding on a box and going up hill, have observed the leaders (who are or ought to be called upon pretty freely at such times); if they have, they have also remarked the twisting of their hocks, and indeed the whole leg, from side to side: this chiefly arises from the bad form of the shoe. It is quite clear that in going up steep hills the toe of the hind foot takes the first bearing on the ground; indeed, some horses on these occasions hardly press it with the heel at all. It must be quite evident that the greater expanse of bearing we give a foot on the earth the firmer must be the tread, and as the hind foot is the great fulcrum by which a horse gets up hill with a load, too much attention cannot be given to effect the firmest hold for it. The toes of shoes are very generally made round, or nearly so; the consequence is, the horse's toe comes to the ground on a very small segment of a circle-in fact, on a pivot the effect of which is, the foot turns to the right and left, and the legs and hocks naturally follow the turn of the foot: this of course produces the twisting of the hocks I allude to, and the leg not being able to be kept straight, the

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horse loses a large portion of his powers: spavins, curbs, thorough-pins, and strained ligaments are the future consequences, and fatigue the present one. The shoe should be made square at the toe to the very extreme verge of the foot: it then comes to the ground with from two inches to two inches and a half firm hold; whereas in many instances it has not half an inch, indeed sometimes (if newly shod) less. Surely it is worth the trouble of seeing a horse is properly shod when we can increase his powers and comfort so much by doing so!

The want of proper attention to both greasing or oiling wheels, and afterwards the way they are put on, is often a sad increase of labour to a horse. A man might think, if his gig or carriage had just come from a coachmaker's, any care in this particular must be uncalled for: now this is just the time when it is most wanted, particularly if he made it: if he did not, and it only went for some repairs, and he was desired to look to the axles, they may then rattle away to their hearts' content. He will tell you they are either a bad sort, or the arms or boxes are worn out: his business is to get to put in new ones, not to make yours go well: but if he has made the carriage, my life on it he screws them up tight enough then, and will put the screw on the purchaser too pretty well as to price. The latter part of the business does not affect the horses, but the former does terribly: one turn of the winch too far makes a carriage a horse heavier in point of following; so, to make certain a pair of axles shall run still to do credit to the maker, horses are often half killed. I have many times had the wheels tried when coming from a coachmaker's, and found they could scarcely be got round. It is a common